As the indoor track team came down the homestretch of the season, they did not let up. While it may be common for teams to collapse late in the season, this year’s team kept up the hard work and qualified a total of twelve runners for the State Championships at the PG Sports and Learning Complex, many of whom had never been to states before.

The team’s 2015 season can be characterized as nothing other than successful. There were tons of personal bests among the runners this year, as well as individual accomplishments and wins at the Regional Championship.

Senior Luke Bender says, “I got a personal record in the 800, where I ran a 2:15 in the 4×800 meter relay at the state meet. It’s definitely something that I’m proud of and am hoping to improve on this upcoming [outdoor] season.”

At the Regional Championships, both freshman Sydney Conboy and junior Johanna Admiraal were individual champions in their respective races. Sydney’s early success as a freshman in the 1600 meter is definitely a sign of good things to come. “I was first in the region for the mile. I qualified for states in the one and two mile, and I placed in states for the one mile,” says Sydney, who is also coming off a successful cross country season this past fall.

One of the challenges the team faced this year was the weather. With a frozen tundra falling upon Maryland, and many early school closings, many practices for the team were cancelled. Despite the cancellations, many of the runners took the initiative to run outside of school on their own to keep up with their training.

The team’s fantastic times and successes are also remarkable due to the facility where they typically compete, the Fifth Regiment Armory. The Armory is far from an ideal place to run; the building is well over one-hundred years old and certainly shows its age. The floors at the Armory are barely different from the floors at Towson High School, which can make running fast times difficult as it’s hard to grip the ground.

Luckily, a few meets, including states, took place at the PG Sports and Learning Complex, which is considerably nicer than the Armory. “The floor [at the armory] is this really slippery concrete type thing. PG is so much better. It’s still a little hot and dry because it’s indoors, but nothing like the armory. The track is an actual track,” says Sydney. “People also generally run better at PG and usually get personal bests there.”

Despite the Armory’s bad rep, some runners, including THS’s junior Nada Ibrahim actually like the Armory. She says, “PG has a more open environment and better track to run on especially with being able to wear spikes however the armory feels more like home.”

Luckily for the twelve runnerswho made it to states, after receiving top four finishes at the Regional meet, they received one more opportunity to run at PG in the state meet. The boy’s and girl’s 4×800 meter relay teams qualified, along with four other individual qualifiers.

While success in indoor track is nice, outdoor track is generally seen as the more important and relevant of the two track seasons. This makes the indoor season the perfect time to train and get tuned up for outdoor in the spring. Nada says that indoor is good for “staying in shape, and is also a good way to work on race strategy.”

With Towson’s success in indoor track, their performances in outdoor track will only improve, and it will be exciting to see what is in store for the team this spring.

Photo credit: John Roemer